But the pool will soon be gone, leaving only the Dolphin Lake Clubhouse at the site. <\/p>\n
The Homewood-Flossmoor Park District Board made it official by voting Tuesday night to close the 50-year-old pool at 183rd Street and Governors Highway in Homewood. <\/p>\n
Commissioner Sue Bertram termed her vote to close the pool the “hardest decision I’ve had to make in 18 years on the board.” <\/p>\n
Board president Bob Haderlein said it came down to simple finances. <\/p>\n
“We have to look at the reality of the situation. This is what we have to do,” he said. <\/p>\n
The park district, which owns and operates Dolphin Lake Pool and Lions Club Pool, also in Homewood, has been considering closing one or both of the aging pools because of mounting maintenance bills and shrinking attendance the past 10 years. <\/p>\n
A public discussion last month about closing Dolphin Lake Pool showed residents were split on the idea. While some suggested seeking alternative funding sources to keep the pool open, many expressed regret but supported closing the pool to deal with the financial losses the park district was experiencing. The two pools have lost a combined $729,000 since 2001. <\/p>\n
The next step is dismantling Dolphin Lake Pool. <\/p>\n
After Tuesday’s meeting, park district executive director Debbie Kopas said the park district will talk to several excavators to see what needs to be done to take out the pool. <\/p>\n
Immediate plans are to turn the former pool into a green space. <\/p>\n
“We’ll survey the public up the line to see what they want to do with the pool site in the future,” Kopas said. <\/p>\n
In the meantime, the park district will consider ways to deal with larger crowds expected this summer at Lions Club Pool, 1041 Ridge Road. <\/p>\n
Kopas said if the same number of people who have been going to Dolphin Lake Pool the past few years switch to Lions Club Pool, the site should be able to accommodate the increase. <\/p>\n
“It may be crowded on the hottest days of the summer,” she said. <\/p>\n
Kopas said the park district is considering using a grassy area west of Lions Club Pool to bring in equipment to attract younger children and teenagers to free up space at the pool. <\/p>\n
Kopas didn’t expect parking or traffic to be a problem. <\/p>\n
“It’s the same entry and exit as years ago when more people were going to that pool,” she said. <\/p>\n
Kopas said the park district is committed to eventually building a new community pool but not for at least five more years. The location is still being considered. <\/p>\n
“The only spot that could handle it is where Lions Club Pool is now,” she said. “Maybe it could be built after that pool is closed.” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services<\/a><\/p>\n Soon all that will remain will be the memories. Residents of Homewood and Flossmoor still will have recollections of spending summer days catching some rays, gathering the courage to jump off the high-dive or teaching young kids how to swim at Dolphin Lake Pool. But the pool will soon be gone, leaving only the Dolphin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-334266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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